


drowning in you

by smudgythoughts



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean Winchester, Coda, Crisis of Faith, Depression, Episode: s13e05 Advanced Thanatology, Hopeful Ending, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Oblivious Sam, Reunions, Suicidal Thoughts, john parallels, sam unknowingly enforces heteronormativity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 10:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12746904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smudgythoughts/pseuds/smudgythoughts
Summary: “He won’t talk to anyone,” the mother says, about her son Sean, and Dean thinks of how he was mute for months after Mary’s death, and how much it hurts to speak now, after Cas, after everything.A coda to 13x05.





	drowning in you

**Author's Note:**

> Aka the one where I use the word "empty" a bazillion times.

It’s ass o'clock in the morning, and Dean is making a PB&J because he doesn’t know what the fuck else to do with himself. _Cas used to like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches_ , he thinks a little numbly. _If he was here right now we could share this sandwich, split it in two little triangles. Maybe I could cut off the edges for him. But he isn’t here, won’t ever be here, and it_ hurts.

Sam walks in, looking a bit surprised to see Dean in the kitchen, making a PB&J sandwich, of all things.

When Sam offers him a beer, Dean shoots him a strange look, wondering why he’s trying to enable Dean’s bad habits.

 

“He won’t talk to anyone,” the mother says, about her son Sean, and Dean thinks of how he was mute for months after Mary’s death, and how much it hurts to speak now, after Cas, after everything.

 

Sam’s trying to get Dean to go to a strip club. A fucking _strip club_.

“Dude, what is going on with you?” Dean demands.

“What are you talking about?” Sam asks, like he doesn’t know.

“All day. You-you give me a uh, beer for breakfast. You gave me Agent Page, which you always like to be, you didn’t whine about me blaring my music the whole way here, and when we stopped for lunch you ordered me chili fries.”

Sam’s bottom lip wobbles. “You love chili fries.”

Dean doesn’t even give him a moment. “Everybody loves chili fries. That’s not the point. Now you wanna go hang out at a strip club?” Sam doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t need to. Dean gets it, gets that Sam is trying to make Dean feel better the only way he knows how. So Dean jokes, he deflects, a neon-sign “see, I’m fine”, until Sam is rolling his eyes at him with a small smile on his face. Good, it worked. Sam thinks he's alright, not as affected by the events of the last few days as he actually is. Not as empty.

 

Dean may have the leather jacket and tough boy attitude, but Sam’s more like John than he ever will be.

Sam doesn’t like change.

It’s not that Sam is against talking about feelings, or being into musicals, or hell, being gay, it’s just that he’s never applied them to Dean. Dean’s pretended to be someone else—the man his father was, and he realized too late that wasn’t really a good thing—for so long, that now that’s mistaken for who he actually is.

And Sammy—brilliant, smart, Sammy—tried to unknowingly enforce that, to make sure Dean stayed the person he was at age twenty. It was just small things, at first.

There was the time when they had just moved into the Bunker, and Dean was so very happy to see its expansive kitchen. He had dreams of whipping up some homemade burgers and fries and real food, maybe even some stuff with fancy french names, or complicated salads for Sam – but then he saw the look of stark surprise on Sam’s face. Dean heard a gruff voice in his head sounding suspiciously like John, telling him that “cooking is a women’s role”, and so he downplayed his enthusiasm, and they sticked to microwave burritos and fast food after that, even if they tasted like dirt and sandpaper.

When Sam used his computer to research a case, and saw musical bootlegs in Dean’s browser history instead of fetishing Asian porn, like he was expecting, Dean laughed it off, making some quip, but inside he was scared. 

There’s exactly one drawer in his room he keeps locks. It has a dollar-store copy of a cookbook, an old battered copy of Vonnegut’s _Cat’s Cradle_ , the first _A Song Of Ice and Fire_ book, DVDs of Doctor Sexy, and a few self-indulgent CDs of actually pretty decent pop artists. All the parts of himself he’s kept under ten layers of flannel and a cocky grin.

Sam thinks he has Dean all worked out. That rock music, booze, and women are what Dean needs, what will make him feel better, to be back to his happy, perky, self. He’s wrong. They’re not even what he wants.

But Sam’s been to hell and back, so it’s not too much of a hassle for Dean to keep up his facade for a little bit longer, to stay the one constant in Sam’s life. So after Sam is asleep in the hotel room, Dean grabs a few twenties, and heads out the front door, starting toward the direction of the Strip Club, intending on getting himself drunk as balls, to show Sam that hey, see, he is better, and there's no need to worry.

 

He’s selfish. He’s so fucking selfish. Billie’s here, giving him a free card, and he wants _so fucking badly_ to ask her to bring Cas back. Cas, the guy who came back so many times. Who Dean got so many chances with and wasted all of them. Not his mom, burned on the frickin’ ceiling, and who was just started to be a better person with her second chance at life. Mary, who’s probably being tortured by Lucifer at this very moment, and he can do something to help her, but he doesn’t want to. Crowley, their ally, their friend, sacrificing himself for the Winchesters, like everyone does eventually. Not those poor people stuck in the veil, that kid who deserves so much more– no, all he can think about is Cas.

Oh. His own life too. That’s something a normal person would try and bargain for. Dean isn’t feeling much of anything right now, and he sure doesn’t have much to life for. Sam will move on eventually; all Dean’s doing is dragging him down.

“Maybe you’re not that guy anymore, the guy who saves the world, the guy who thinks he’ll win no matter what,” she tells him. It’s true. Dean doesn’t even care enough to try and lie.

“I don’t matter,” Dean says. He’s useless. Cas was going after Lucifer, coming after him with an angel blade, and Dean had a chance to save him, but he wasn’t able to.

“You wanna die,” Billie says, looking utterly perplexed by him, by who he’s become.

Dean only shrugs.

 

They’re wheeling out Sean’s body, and his mom is only staring into space. There’s no tears on her face, no frown, no emotions to be seen at all. Just emptiness.

“I watched the man I love die. There’s no normal after that,” a woman had told him years ago. Dean hadn’t understood what she meant, not really. But, well, that was then. A lot has changed since.

Sam jostles his shoulder. “You okay?”

It’s time to finally stop lying, stop pretending. To both Sam and himself. “No. Sam, I’m not ok. I’m pretty far from okay.”

Sam doesn’t said anything, giving him the space to talk.

Each word is like going through the wringer. “You know, my whole life, I always believed… that what we do, is important. No matter what the cost. No matter who we lost, whether it was dad, or-or Bobby, or-or–” He can’t even said his name. It’s been more than a month, and he can’t even said his name. “–and I would take the hit, but I kept on fighting, because I _believed_. That we were making the world a better place. And now mom–” He can’t stop the small smile that spreads across his face “–and _Cas_ and-and I-I don’t know, I don’t know.”

It’s never been like this, never hurt so much he can barely breathe. After Kevin, after Charlie, he was a mess of a human being, but at least he was able to put himself together, with a fuckload of booze and some no-strings-attached sex. This is different. A wound time won’t heal.

“So now you don’t believe anymore.”

“I just need a _win_.” His voice cracks. “I just need a damn win.”

 

Sam dozed off hours ago. He looks calm, happy, in his sleep. If Dean squinted, he could still see the kid he practically raised, with dimples and a large smile and big dreams. The one that had shriveled up and died years ago.

Dean stares out at the road ahead. At one point he has to swivel to avoid another car, and he turns a couple of times, but other than that the ride is unnoteworthy. Mundane. Uneventful. Not life changing.

His phone rings. He pulls it out, keeping one hand steady on the wheel, because even though he doesn’t really care if the car runs into a ditch, he sure as hell isn’t letting Sammy die. “Yeah?”

Then. “Hello, Dean.”

Time sleeps to slow down. It’s Cas. The same gruff voice, saying “Dean” so very gently, like he’s caressing the word. The sun coming out after too long in the dark. Cas goes on to say that he’s alive, and that he’s waiting at a phone booth, and could Dean please come pick him up.

Sam shifts beside him, saying a worried, “what?” but Dean’s too busy turning the car and and heading the other direction to answer. He understands now why it’s called ‘burning rubber’, ‘cause he’s driving so fast isn’t a wonder the wheels don’t catch fire.

He must have driven down the alley, and he must have put the car into first gear, and he must have gotten out of the car – though he doesn’t remember any of it.

Right now Cas is standing in front of him, only a few feet away. It’s taking all of Dean’s willpower to not run to him right now and wrap him in his arms, to clutch at his trench coat and cry into his shoulder, to tell him how very much he _missed_ him. Cas is turning around now, his trench coat an unfamiliar shade and tie a different color, but Dean doesn’t dwell on that thought, because Cas is here, and alive; all of Dean’s prayers answered.

If this is God’s way of helping him, of giving him a win, then Dean’s a devout man for life.


End file.
